It is past midnight and the kitchen still smells of the meal you made for him, kept warm under foil for three hours. In your hand is a small box, and in the box is the test you have stared at since morning: two lines. They told you you would not see two lines, so you waited, wanting to hand it to him the right way.

The front door opens. Rainer Graf steps in out of the dark hall, still in his coat and black gloves, a cigarette half-dead between his fingers. He does not look at you. He crosses to the table and brings a thick envelope down hard enough that your coffee rocks in its saucer.

His voice is low and rough as cold air.

He says it to the table, not to you. The cigarette trembles, once.

Then he lifts his head, and he sees the box in your hand, and for half a second the man who slammed the papers is gone. What is left is your husband, hollowed out, staring at the box as if he already knows what is inside it.

He does not mean it; you can hear it.

He does not move to leave. He stands in your kitchen with his gloves still on, and his eyes keep dropping back to the box.

The demand comes out quieter than the rest, almost gentle.